330 
by the apposition of a flat flake of charcoal to its mouth. Bones 
without urns, and urns without bones — rede it who may. 
Again, in a comparatively small cairn, with a very slight 
covering of earth, at a point some six or seven feet south 
of the centre, I find, as soon as I reach the level of 
the moor, many fragments of an urn, accompanied by portions 
of calcined bone. Still there was no token of modern dis- 
turbance in this case. On the contrary, all such tokens were, 
in a marked manner, wanting. Whoever had broken that urn 
and spilled its contents had done so before the stones which 
covered the whole had been piled as they were before I com- 
menced to remove them. Soon, on continuing the excavation, 
it was clear that these tokens of a former burial were not 
limited to the surface of the ancient moor ; they continued 
to be found as inch by inch the search was prosecuted down- 
wards ; until, at last, on removing a small flat stone, set 
obliquely, the edge of a buried urn became apparent. Over 
this urn, below it, all round it, in its old, old resting place, 
the ashes of a former burial and the sherds of their containing 
vase were found, thrown in, as one could not but remark, in 
a kind of studious disarray. The buried urn, on being care- 
fully disinterred, was found to be entire, excepting only a 
slight abrasion of part of the mouth ; to be quite diverse in 
details of shape and markings from any hitherto found in the 
district ; and to contain, besides a modicum of calcined bones, 
a small vase of barrel-shape, placed bottom upwards about 
mid-depth, and with one of its sides closing the mouth of an 
incense-cup laid sideways. Both these last-named vases were 
empty. 
Yet again, in a houe on the Skelton moors (the examina- 
tion of which is yet incomplete),* and showing sad signs of 
* The examination has been completed since this was written, and has 
yielded a total of ten urns, more or less complete, besides the fragments of at 
least six others. 
